


unknown lands

by halfwheeze



Series: Winteriron Bingo 2019 (Round 1) [13]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU but it's vague, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Author loves Italics, Avoidance, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes's Depression, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Depression, M/M, Overuse of italics, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Sam Wilson, Protective Steve Rogers, Teen for Depression, Three Stooges Sam Steve and Clint, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, depressive symptoms, lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 06:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18516256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: tony's been gone for months, but the magnets on the fridge have stayed the same.





	unknown lands

**Author's Note:**

> This fill is for Winteriron square N1: Avoiding!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

there’s a series of magnets on the fridge, bright and proud and semi-ironic, but tony had giggled when he was putting it up, and bucky had laughed, eyes crinkled as he leaned against the counter. this particular assortment of them has been on the fridge for months. steve frowns at it every single time he comes over, and bucky slowly stops inviting him over as much, phasing it out like it’s natural. sometimes he walks by the fridge with his shoulders drawn down, strokes his fingers across the letters like he'll still feel the touch of tony's skin if he lingers long enough, but he never moves a single one. 

it’s part of the reason why he doesn’t have all of their friends come over anymore. if everyone else comes, tony will follow, and tony doesn’t need to see all of the ways that bucky can’t manage to clean him off of the carpets, out of the cabinets, off of the goddamn refrigerator door. no matter how many times bucky has that thought, he still can’t move a single letter. it was the last message tony left, after all. 

_ you made it through another day!!! that may not seem like much, but you’re doing so great!!!  _ tony had left it in the morning before bucky had gotten out of bed, creaking muscles speaking of the nightmares that he and tony had fought off the night before. the messages had usually changed every day or so before tony had left, little messages from one of them to the other, 

he should move them. everyone is coming over tonight. but, he knows that he won’t. he’ll hem them all out into the living room and spilling onto the balcony rather than let anyone into the depressive space of his kitchen, hollow and hallowed, empty and worshipful. he’ll have to set things up on the dining room table to keep them away from attempting to help in the kitchen, but that’s fine as well. he rarely has the energy for cooking anymore (something that used to light up the apartment until tony wrapped around his back, arms around his waist asking after what the meal was), so he’ll likely order pizza. that’s fine too. 

he avoids tony like it’s going out of style, manipulating steve and sam into telling him if tony is going to be there at all and editing his plans accordingly. from what he understands, tony has been equally trying to avoid him, and that’s fine too. it’s fine that bucky doesn’t know exactly what he did wrong, it’s fine that bucky doesn’t understand exactly what tony found in him that was worth leaving, it’s fine. it makes it easier. it’s fine. 

he doesn’t know how he’s going to avoid tony in the tight space of his own apartment, but he’s been avoiding the ghost of him for months, so he imagines that he’s pretty practiced in that desperate kind of avoidance, the kind that isn’t avoidance at all. he wishes that he didn’t have to pretend to avoid anything at all. 

he digs himself out of his grave to answer the door when steve arrives and tries not to look like a mourner at his own funeral. his best friend immediately pulls him into a hug, that frown on his face that says that he would beat the ass of anyone who hurt bucky, but bucky doesn’t want him to. he can’t stand even the thought of tony hurt. 

“hey stevie,” he says, his voice crackling from disuse, and steve pulls together a grin for him. it’s a valiant effort, even if it looks like an effort all the same. 

“hey buck. you ordered pizza yet?” steve asks, though he already seems to know it’s a no before bucky can even make a face. “i got it,” the blonde says, waving a hand and walking into the part of bucky’s shit apartment that has the best service. bucky can hear the hum of steve ordering, but he doesn’t focus on the words, just the energy of having someone else in his apartment. he can’t tell if it’s going to be a bad night yet, can’t tell if steve and sam are going to have to rush everyone out while bucky has a panic attack on the bathroom floor, but it’s usually a close call anyway. there are only a few nights in which he can tell that shit is going to hit the fan. 

he can tell that the next person to come to the door is clint because the don’t ring the bell, instead knocking to a rhythm.  _ shave and a haircut! two bits.  _ for someone who can’t hear himself speak very well without hearing aids in, clint sure thinks that he’s funny with any sound-based humor. 

“hey buckaroni and cheese. you gucci?” clint asks as he comes in, to which bucky barely holds back blinking and shaking his head in confusion. he knows what clint does: dances around problems and distracts, nothing of steve and sam’s twelve step program to stop being addicted to your sadness, clint provides a salvation of his own. clint leads in his service dog and unleashes lucky so that he can wander all over the apartment, to which the dog bounds over to where he can likely smell steve’s old spice covered ass. bucky allows the uptick of his mouth, a slight smile, when clint throws an arm around his shoulders. 

“i’m good, clint,” he replies late, but the archer just takes it into stride. clint is likely the only recreational archer that bucky has ever met, though for work he does some shit that he’s awfully nonspecific about. all bucky really knows is that clint and his best friend natasha are partners for some organisation, have worked together for years and know more about each other than is likely healthy. whatever. 

“natty is gonna be late, she said to make sure that no one has any fun without her, and to make it explicitly clear that they’re not having fun because she’s not here,” clint says, dragging bucky into his own living room like this is clint’s place or something. bucky allows it and feels a little more of his smile coming back. he feels exhausted by the expression, like his muscles don’t remember how to make it, but it’s a good kind of exhaustion. everything is fine, even this. 

“should we hold the pizza eating for her? will your heart take it?” bucky jokes back, bumping his shoulder against clint’s chest. the archer is a good five inches taller than him with a penchant for putting his elbow on top of people’s heads, but he’s still a good guy. at least bucky has it better than - tony. bucky has it better than tony, who is 5’7 to his 5’9, and it hurts to think about him, hurts to think about the way that he used to tease tony about it, hurts to think about hooking his chin over tony’s shoulder, pulling him close, keeping him safe. he folds up the hollow feeling inside of himself and promises to think about it later, even if he won’t. not on purpose at least. 

more and more of their friends come, bruce just after clint with his ducked head and his grin, then thor and loki, then natasha, who has a version of late that just means that she’s not twenty minutes early. she passes her face along his as she walks by, a soft affection that embarrassingly almost brings him to tears, but he’s under steve’s arm now and he’s doing fine. it’s, again, embarrassing how much all of his friends are willing to put up with the fact that he needs physical contact now that tony isn’t providing it. 

now that tony doesn’t want to. 

the twins and vision and t’challa and his little sister all arrive before tony, and bucky tries not to feel snubbed by that. he wonders who it was that convinced him to come to this, but he knows by the time that tony is in the door: james rhodes is leading him with a hand on the small of his back, and bucky tries not to be bitter. he was never jealous of rhodey, tony’s best friend of more years than any of the others have known the man combined, but it’s harder now that tony is so far out of reach. bucky still isn’t jealous, perse, but there is a melancholic bitterness in the back of his throat that just won’t sort itself out. 

“pizza should be here in five,” steve says before tony and rhodey can say anything, projecting an air that is equally  _ i’m a polite young gentleman  _ and  _ don’t fuck with me.  _ it’s an air that bucky is familiar with, as it used to be the one that  _ he  _ used to protect  _ his  _ best friend, but those days are long over, aren’t they? he doesn’t protect anyone anymore. 

he wanders away from steve and into clint’s space without saying a word to their newest arrivals. clint naturally throws an arm over his shoulder and dips his nose against bucky’s hair for a moment, a fluid affection that always makes bucky feel wanted rather than making him feel like a bother. tony doesn’t try to infiltrate the circle of friends that includes steve, bucky, clint, thor, pietro and wanda. instead, he stays over with tasha, loki, t’challa, shuri, bruce and vision. bucky tries not to feel the division in his bones. 

when the pizza arrives, both groups merge into one around the dining room table before they all sit in the living room. clint and natasha are sprawled over each other on one of the thrifted loveseats that bucky had never let tony replace, and bucky and sam are sitting on the floor with their backs pressed against it. steve and wanda and pietro take up one of the couches, vision sitting in front of wanda as he tries to make small talk with her to pietro’s glaring, thor sitting happily beside him. shuri sits in the stately armchair that her older brother had attempted to claim while said older brother sits on the floor in front of her, thoroughly unimpressed.

tony and bruce and rhodey and loki are all crowded onto one couch, tony sitting openly on rhodes’s lap with his legs in loki’s lap, and bucky does not openly miss the intimacy. maybe he aches with missing it inside, but at least he doesn’t express about it. 

there’s banter, most of which passes directly over bucky’s head, but he laughs at clint’s jokes anyway. he gives steve a hard time anyway. he agrees with tasha and disagrees with sam when those things come up anyway. he doesn’t speak directly to tony, but he talks to people who are physically proximous to tony (mostly bruce, who speaks low and slow and calm), and he thinks that’s enough. he thinks that’s enough until tony follows him into the kitchen when bucky grabs a drink, stopping dead in the light that precedes the refrigerator and he stands there, his fingers just hovering over the magnets for a moment. 

bucky feels his heart drop into his shoes. 

“oh,  _ bucky,” _ tony says, pitiful, his own fingers running over the words like bucky’s had a million times, and something in bucky rages in protection.  _ don’t move them!  _ it screams,  _ they’re all i have left.  _

there’s something very sad in that. he has tony right in front of him, physical and quantifiable and yet  _ so far away,  _ but he can’t reach out for him, has to protect these magnets like stolen relics because they’re all he has to remember some illspoken exploration into an unknown land. happiness. we’ll call the unknown land happiness. he quarter turns to look at the sink when tony starts looking at him, not wanting to show tony the hurricane way that he falls apart sometimes, even if tony is familiar with the weather of this particular sky. 

“you keep them the same. you keep… _ me,”  _ tony seems to realise, looking between bucky and the magnets like they’re going to expose some legendary story, but bucky can’t say a word. he just nods, wanting to slide back into the public situation of his living room before tony can say anything else, before tony can tell him that it’s  _ weird,  _ that they’re  _ over,  _ that he needs to stop. he can’t have this one thing ripped out from under him. 

“as much as i can,” he admits unbidden, his voice cracking open like the red sea, emotions spilling over and out into the room. he doesn’t want to admit it, doesn’t want to put this mourning on tony’s plate, but it’s already out there now. it’s not like tony doesn’t see the ghosts anyway. he’s surprised as tony grabs his chin, making him look down and into tony’s eyes rather than avoiding this. 

“you… want to keep me? you still want me around?” tony asks, the vulnerability shining in his eyes a thing that bucky has seen in the mirror a hundred times, and he’s very confused. he nods anyway. 

“of course i do. i - i know i was supposed to get over this months ago, but you. you’re the love of my life, tony,” bucky admits, his voice stripped and broken with emotion, and he curses himself for how strained he can be. tony is looking at him like he’s grown a second head, and yet like it’s a very beautiful second head, and one he never expected in a very good way. maybe this isn’t the metaphor for the time. 

“i didn’t think… i didn’t think. would you… could we start again?” tony asks, bright eyes something that bucky could begin to drown in. it takes him a moment to process what tony actually said, and he has to swallow back tears that taste like hope and something new, because tony can’t mean it. people don’t leave and want him back, they don’t decide they don’t want him and change their mind, people don’t… tony wasn’t people. maybe he’s still not people. not on the inside.

“are you sure?” he asks instead of answering, all of his naked hope and vulnerability and all of the emotions he wants to shove into a garbage can just  _ showing,  _ and he tries not to feel over exposed in front of the man who used to see him at his worst. tony cups his face and the apartment feels like home. 

“i’m so sure, bucky. i thought… i thought you didn’t… i thought i was bad for you,” tony confesses, watching bucky like he expects him to take it all back, surprised when bucky instead pulls him closer. 

“you are the best thing that has ever happened to me, tony. the best thing. you weren’t bad for me. i’ve missed you more than anything,” bucky says, his sentences disjointed as he tries to collect himself, but he’s in a puddle on the floor and he cannot stop that anymore. maybe tony will stick around and help him clean it up this time, help him with fixing everything that’s fallen to waste in his absence, maybe he’ll stay. or, maybe he won’t. maybe bucky will only get him for one glorious moment, but that’s more than nothing. 

“clint and steve and sam, they -” tony starts, but he shakes his head, “it doesn’t matter what they told me. i just. if you want me back i want to come back, baby, i promise i will.” tony sounds sure of himself, something that bucky hasn’t heard in months, and he relaxes against tony’s person before tensing all over again. 

“what’d they tell you?” bucky asks, tilting his head. he sees tony bite his lip out of the corner of his eye from his place against tony’s collarbone (right where he belongs). 

“something about… watching myself around you. about making you upset, and i. i took it very badly, admittedly, but i haven’t been… good with relationships in the past,” tony clarifies, hiding his own face against bucky’s metal shoulder. part of bucky, the protective part that has shrivelled in the time since tony has been away, as it were, surges into his chest. he wants to march into the living room and start yelling, wants to start a fight, but tony clings to him. he wraps his hand around bucky’s wrist. 

“that’s not okay,” bucky growls out, low like his voice always with, but with a depth of emotion he hadn’t realised he had lost. this sudden spell of emotional recovery won’t last, he knows, the numbness will settle in some days and refuse to leave, but days like that were always so much easier when tony would build him blanket forts, make him smores over lighter fires, horrific and chemical but so  _ fun.  _ he’s had so many bad days alone since tony left one day and never came back, inviting him out to tell him that it’s  _ not working out.  _ bucky remembers how tony had hid his face, how the tear tracks were visible, how upset tony looked. bucky had assumed it was his fear of confrontation. 

“it’s okay, bucky. if i can have you back now, everything is okay,” tony says, stroking a hand down bucky’s side, and bucky tries to let it calm him. it doesn’t work. he catches tony’s hand with his own and implores him silently to let him start something about it, which tony gives him with a wince. bucky was alone for far too long to just let it go without someone having to hear about the roaring in his chest. 

“hi, so, just asking, why the fuck did the three of you decide that my relationship was your business?” he interrupts the existing conversation more confidently than he’s done anything since that horrific lunch date. clint, sam and steve look at him with eyes the size of saucers before they all start speaking at once, a hum of noise that bucky puts to a stop after only a few seconds of it, the rest of their friends looking on with expressions varying from shock to sympathy. except rhodes, who seems to watch with a sense of caution that bucky can appreciate. clint wins out on who the of the three stooges gets to speak. 

“he said that he needed to go home to the  _ clingy baby!  _ how were we supposed to take that? man, it’s not okay to talk about your partner like that. we just didn’t want him to hurt you,” clint rambles, yanking a hand through his hair in obvious discomfort. 

bucky remembers the way that tony used to say that, the  _ clingy baby  _ smile and the face pat that tony would give him as bucky moved one of tony’s hands to rest on the back of his neck, or as bucky draped himself over the other man, or whatever movement for physical contact that bucky felt the need to make. 

“you think  **_this_ ** didn’t hurt me? you think  **_you_ ** get to choose this? fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you especially,” bucky says, turning from clint to sam and lastly to steve, trying to push down the tears that should like to overwhelm him, “you knew what he meant to me. you knew how much better he made me.” his flesh fingers tangle with the metal as he wrings his hands in his nerves, but tony stops him like he used to, pulling bucky’s left hand between his own. bucky settles in the far off familiarity and tries not to cry. 

“what about what he called you? you cannot pretend that was okay!” sam insists, trying to save their argument. bucky turns to him. 

“did you see me with tony? i  _ was  _ clingy! and he did call me baby. he called me clingy baby to my face, and it always made me smile so maybe  _ that’s  _ why he called me things like that, wilson. did any of you think about how tony is your friend too? how tony has a past too?” bucky rants, tears finally spilling and he hates himself for how he angry cries, but he doesn’t stop. he clings onto tony’s hand and slowly loses it, wanting to scratch at his scalp but stopping himself for the first time in months. clint frowns and yanks at his hair again. 

“fuck, i’m sorry man. i only saw it one way, and that’s really fucked up. i’m sorry, tony,” clint says, looking up and biting his lip. he stands after he makes eye contact with tony, crossing the room and sweeping the shorter man into his arms. “i’m so sorry, man,” he repeats, sounding nearly as upset as bucky is, and he’s an automatic forgiveness. staying upset with clint is like staying upset with his dog, the mangy bastard who is eating half of a pizza in the back corner of the living room by now. 

“it’s… it’s okay, clint. you were looking out for him. i get it,” tony whispers, loud enough that bucky and clint can both hear (clint’s hearing aids a big help on that front), but quiet so that no one else can. it’s sam that speaks first. 

“hey, tony, i didn’t mean to fuck anything up. i just wanted to make sure you were treating our boy right. i’m sorry i didn’t think about the consequences of my actions and that those consequences hurt you,” sam says, though he doesn’t stand to hug tony, staying away from the physical reunion. sam isn’t much for touching anyway. steve stands awkwardly and clears his throat though, extracting himself from his place beneath wanda’s legs. 

“i’m not sorry for protecting him, or trying to, but… i’m sorry i didn’t act like your friend while doing it. i should have approached it better so that things wouldn’t get so bad,” steve apologizes without apologizing, which is just like steve. bucky and tony exchange a look to mutually decide that they’re okay with it before bucky relaxes. natasha clears her throat with a wrinkle of her nose. 

“alright. enough drama for tonight. who’s gonna break out the booze?” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!
> 
> Leave a kudos and a comment!
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Prompt me in the comments down below or on tumblr @halfwheeze!


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